


now you've got to (breathe)

by mishnewbooty



Category: Video Blogging RPF, vlog squad
Genre: Aftercare, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Asphyxiation, Best Friends, Breathplay, Childhood Friends, Choking, Dom/sub Undertones, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Light BDSM, Male-Female Friendship, Masturbation, Mild Smut, Smut, Trampling, Verbal Abuse, but mild verbal abuse, im sorry, mentions of face slapping, mild sexual violence, more like taunting, send me straight to hell
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-30
Packaged: 2021-01-31 10:55:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21445063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mishnewbooty/pseuds/mishnewbooty
Summary: So he does it. He starts with a little bit of pressure, pushes two fingers against the soft skin at the base of her throat. Feels her tendons and the knobs of her collarbone. Her eyes seem to go darker, and she resists, just to increase the tension, to make his fingers press harder against her.
Relationships: David Dobrik/Natalie Mariduena
Comments: 14
Kudos: 77





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This monstrosity was inspired by a certain picture of David's hand around Natalie's throat and I couldn't get the image out of my head so here it is in word form. This is ever so slightly ooc. 
> 
> It's a little darker please take head of the tags and read responsibly.
> 
> Also just as a little note, this type of relationship, sexual or not can be fun and satisfying as long as it is being done safely and consensually.

David once said in an interview that he and Natalie never really impose rules on each other, that from day one they've always behaved however they like with each other. It's not quite true.

There's always been one, unspoken rule, always tagging after them. Never to push too hard, go too far, step over that one last line that exists between them. They spend their lives on that line, because it's okay to push hard and go far, to get so close they can fucking taste it, but to cross it is unthinkable.

They're so close it's dangerous; they know that, but they've never been the type to shy away from risks, and in this case it seems more dangerous to ignore them. Their relationship isn't complete without that tension, it's true, but if left alone it could all too easily bubble over, boil itself away into nothingness and leave them to split off, spinning away from each other with nothing left.

So they maintain a difficult balance, taunt temptation like they're playing with fire. They let out just enough of that tension to be able to live with each other, and then they put the lid right back on it, lock it away and let it build and build until once again, they're bursting at the seams with it.

But they never feel like they have quite as much control as they'd like to, as they pretend to. It's like a monster under the bed, but instead of lying there every night with the covers up to their necks and their eyes squeezed shut 'til they grow out of it, they've encouraged it, fed it and nurtured it, given it something to stick around for.

And now it's not going anywhere, not until it's managed to devour them whole.

Over the years, they've developed ways to handle it, and they've grown so used to it that in some ways it almost feels like a routine. They know roughly how long they can leave it before they start wanting to kill each other; they know which of each other's buttons to push to get the reaction they want; they know that a screaming fight will do if things get desperate.

————

Sometimes it comes over them all of a sudden, and that's when it feels really out of their control. It's when they're busy and stressed, strings pulled taut. When David feels like he'll snap at the slightest provocation. And that's when Natalie gets childish, riles him up and taunts him, makes it _worse_. She knows him so well that she's perfect at getting on his nerves, under his skin, and she's patient enough to do it for days. As long as it takes for him to lose his temper.

It shouldn't be something he enjoys, but he takes comfort in the fact that it shouldn't be something _she_ enjoys either. But she wants it, and he always knows when she wants it because she gets like this, nags at him and teases him, gets in his space until he just can't take it anymore.

And then he lashes out, takes her by the hips; waist; shoulders at first, backs her up against a wall or throws her down on the nearest surface. Sometimes he yells, can't help himself, screams something awful, and then she always shudders at the rare thrill of it, scared and excited and buzzing with anticipation under his hands. It makes him even angrier, the way she does it on purpose, the way that even when she's pinned against the wall or trapped beneath his body she'll still tilt her chin up at him defiantly, waiting.

Maybe that's why he always snaps—because she's flaunting the way she has that control over him, teasing him with it, knowing she'll get what she wants. And he could be the bigger person, he could throw up his hands and walk away, but he never does, never feels like he _can_. She'll always get him in the end, and deep down, he wants it just as bad as she does.

So he does it. He starts with a little bit of pressure, pushes two fingers against the soft skin at the base of her throat. Feels her tendons and the knobs of her collarbone. Her eyes seem to go darker, and she resists, just to increase the tension, to make his fingers press harder against her. And there's something about that that drives him _crazy_, the way she's trying to take control even now, and within a split-second his hand's around her neck, tight enough to feel the gulp as she swallows hard

Sometimes he clamps his hand over her mouth first instead, feels her hot breath against his palm, a teasing flick of her tongue sometimes just to goad him into it. He smothers her, his big hand over her face, the heel of it crushed against her lips and his fingers squeezing, blocking her nose.

His other hand gets trapped between their bodies, palm against his crotch, knuckles pressing awkwardly against hers. The harder he holds her, the more her hips push against him, pushing against his hand and pushing his hand against himself. If she's against a wall; door; window with a ledge digging into her back, she gradually draws away from it.

Her body bends backwards 'til she's staring up at the ceiling, glassy-eyed, red-faced, sweating. Joined to him at the hips and throat, their legs often intertwined so she can give him weak little kicks of her sneakers on his ankles when she can't take any more.

If she's on the bed; sofa; floor; on a table once or twice, she arches up against him, writhing under the strong grip of his thighs on either side of her. It's like something's pulling her upwards from the chest, like her lungs are trying so hard to reach the air. The way she thrashes, tearing the sheets from the bed with her fists, makes her seem possessed. She grinds against him like that, clumsy and frantic, and he can't stand it, can't stand the stirring in his jeans, the inevitable response. It's too close, too direct, and he grips her tighter, tries to hold her still and draw it out of her like an exorcist.

There's violence in it, of course, but no anger—the petty frustrations that bring this on dissipate quickly, leaving only intense passion, a forceful sort of all-consuming lust.

Her hair clings to her forehead, sometimes shields her eyes, sometimes covers her whole face altogether like a heavy black curtain. She grabs a hold of his hips, or hooks her fingers through his belt loops; grabs fistfuls of cushion or duvet or rug; claws helplessly against wall or wooden floor. She never quite goes still, and he can never quite work out the meaning of her violent little spasms, the way her hips jerk against him and she presses so stiflingly close that he swears he can feel the damp heat of her.

It's the hardest thing in the world for him to pull away, but he does—always does, always has to. He does it in one swift movement, lets her go and jerks back from her, fights himself free from her clinging grip. And then she's limp and gasping, panting, and he's stroking her hair back from her face and even getting her a drink of water if she needs it.

She usually laughs a little, then, weak and wheezing, high on the rush of it. He can do nothing but cradle her face in his hands and stare into her eyes, the pupils blown wide. She's fine, she's always fine, and that's why she laughs—at his concern. He's always panicked, sometimes equally breathless, perhaps having held the air in his lungs along with her subconsciously. Once or twice he's caught sight of himself in a mirror and been shocked at the clammy pallor of his face, his slack-jawed expression.

But he's never stopped to question it, never asked why he does this to himself. It's not a question worth asking.

——————-

It doesn't always come in such a frantic flurry. They can cope for weeks without it, sometimes; have learnt to abstain like that though it feels almost as achingly difficult as being physically separated. It becomes another game—who's the weaker one, who needs it most, who'll crack first? And then eventually, it will engulf them once again, sometimes occurring in an almost calm way, utterly removed from their wild fits of passion and violence.

They'll be working on something, lying on his bed together, editing, reworking the same 30 second bit over and over again.

David will write out a message in the title text. Something offensive, uncalled for, but succinct and simple and usually just a little bit childish. _YOU_, he might add after a moment, proud of himself. He'll tilt the screen toward Natalie with a goofy grin, waiting patiently with a side eye for her reaction.

She'll roll her eyes, giggle. Type something in response, maybe _fuck you_ _too_, or something unintelligible just to wind him up.

A few clear, simple words are what do it eventually. _C A R E F U L_. spelt out in capitals. Or, perhaps, an instruction. _LIE_ _DOWN. BRING ME WATER. TIE MY HAIR BACK_.

And he'll do whatever it says. _Whatever_ it says. He'll bring her favourite snacks, he'll light some candles, He'll lie there on the floor, watch her with a little hint of a smile on his face. She'll take her time because she likes it like this, likes these in-between moments, likes to savour them.

Every once in a while, that's as far as it goes. She'll just watch him for a while, then go back to her emails. Or maybe she'll curl up beside him on the floor, wordlessly. Sometimes it frustrates him like nothing else, makes him seethe and get short with her, snapping at her for days on end. But mostly, it works just as well. What he really needs is that command, that surrender of control. She'll demand something of him—either in these silly title cards in iMovie or in texts. _DO THE DISHES_, or _ORGANIZE YOUR DESK_, she might say, and both of them will gain some strange sense of satisfaction from it as he carries out whatever mindless chore she's chosen under her watchful gaze.

But they can't always leave it at that. They're too greedy, too foolish.

So sometimes David lies down, and sometimes Natalie stands up, stands over him and lets him look up at her like that, watching her a little nervously as she circles him like a vulture. She likes to drag it out. She'll point one foot, run the toe of her foot along the lines of his body. As light as she can, just barely brushing him. She'll run her sole the centre of him, let it pause and press a little at his heart, his navel, his crotch.

Once or twice, maybe just a handful of times, she's seen him get hard from that alone. Seen, _felt_, the stirring of him beneath her foot, the tightening of the fabric of his jeans. It always brings on a strange mixture of reactions, visceral and sour somewhere in her gut or the back of her throat. Curiosity, excitement, hunger, possessiveness, all blended harshly with a deep gush of revulsion. It's a feeling she favours for its utter strangeness, for that moment that she feels the urges wrestling inside her. The way she fights the desire to pull down her shorts right then and there and beg for it.

She still finds herself crouching down, hands going for his throat and pinning him to the floor. She'll sit on his stomach or his chest, straddling him as she squeezes harder, until he's bright red with his eyes watering. Her heart beats fast, she sweats. His face is like putty in her hands, and she contorts it, makes him sneer at her, wrinkle his nose. If she's settled too low on his body she feels his erection at the small of her back, a gentle but insistent stiff pressing.

She gets up in something like disgust, sick of feeling his body against hers, finding it almost suffocating. If he starts to tear up, she holds him like a mother, strokes his back and speaks the first words, breathy reassuring whispers as he tries to get air back into his lungs. She strokes the sweat from his forehead and presses a kiss there.

Usually, he leaves for a shower, and she sits on the floor, alone and cross-legged, hunched over and trying to concentrate. It's everywhere within her, this feeling, a tight ball inside, aching and hot in the pit of her belly and the base of her spine.

But she doesn't mind, can't complain. Because it feels so, so much better than the way things were before.

——————

It's not about _sex_, specifically, it's just that this is something easier to quantify than what they really mean. It's about Natalie’s indifference to other affairs as a whole, the way she seems not to need anybody else or the normality and stability of a separate relationship. No, this is all she seems to require, to desire. This is where she gets the majority of her pleasure. It's unhealthy, and it's fascinating, and it's something they _both_ feel horribly guilty for—Natalie for bringing it on herself and David for encouraging it.

When they’re in a hotel room in another city he’ll say, “You can't really connect with anyone, can you?" almost conversationally. "You only get off on _this_. It's sick. You're never going to find anybody like me—may as well settle—never marry, never have kids—" his voice starts to break with the cruelty of the words, but he's spurred on by the sounds he gets in response, the rustle of cotton, snap of elastic, that unmistakable sound of skin on skin.

He'll always find some way to use her name. "You're never gonna find another me, Nat," he might say, as her breathing gets heavier, the pace more erratic.

"Dave." Her voice sounds weak and strained, breathless, and he hates how much he loves that.

“Natalie," he'll say firmly; doesn't want her to remove herself from this in any way. Makes it better.

Now, sometimes (if he can deal with it) he might mention Jeff.

"So pathetic," he'll say, murmur, almost whisper. "The one person besides me doesn't want you—just toying with you—like a cat with a fucking bird—"

He never gets it quite like she does, but he feels himself squirming in his bed anyway, little shivers running through him to his groin. It never goes any further for him, but he doesn't know quite how far she gets.

"And you fucking—"

Sometimes she'll breathe like _that_, a sudden little sharp intake of breath that makes him lose track of every thought in his brain. Out of the corner of his eye (he never looks at her, not fully) he might see her writhe, might catch sight of her hand pulling in a fistful of duvet. Once, he made the mistake of glancing—saw her silhouette in the dim light coming from the bathroom with its door ajar, saw the beautiful arch of her back and the way her t-shirt (one that used to be his a long, long time ago) crumples just beneath her neck. Saw the slight, subtle curve of her breasts, the erect points of her nipples. And he flushed like a teenager walking in on his crush undressing, and he hated himself for it, attacked her even harder with his words until she was sobbing and breathless and he couldn't ignore that slick sound of motion.

Yeah, sometimes he gets hard, but he ignores it, wills it all away, waits 'til it's so nearly, _nearly_ out of control and then stops it, draws it to a screeching, almost painful halt.

"Stop. Jesus, you're pathetic," he says. Weak, useless, a disgrace, disgusting. Any of a number of words. It's hard for her to stop when she's so close, but he makes her. Has to go backwards, reverse it all, calm himself down and get soft on her, whispering tenderly like he's waking her from a nightmare.

"Nat, stop, Natalie stop it,” he'll murmur, curled over to face her but with his eyes squeezed tightly shut.

He'll keep going until the moment's gone, until she takes her fucking hands off herself and lies there shaking gently under the covers, waiting for his next words. But there never are any; he never knows what else to say. He just rolls over, brings the bed sheets up to his mouth and buries his face in them, winces through the silence until he finally falls asleep. He never knows what Natalie does, and he doesn't quite want to.

————-

But sometimes he's the one that's weaker. Sometimes if he doesn't get any release, he can't sleep from the pent-up frustration, and he catches himself masturbating, mind blank even as he works himself slowly under the covers, almost waiting for an interruption.

She always knows, right from the start. She slithers out of bed, slinks across to him, on her knees beside him with her elbows resting on the mattress. He stares fixedly at the ceiling and keeps going, because she won't let him stop.

The movement beneath the covers starts to slow. "Don't stop."

He nods again, face flushed. "Yeah, yes," he says, voice gravelly. "Please," he chokes out, wiping the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

She likes him when he's flustered like this, embarrassed by having to ask for things and be polite about it. It's not how their relationship usually is, everything else is just take take take, no questions asked. And there's something in this that humiliates him, she can tell, can see it in the way he won't look her in the eye and squirms on the bed in front of her. And maybe it's the fact that it makes it better, maybe that's what shames him. She'll never know.

She watches him closely, but only his face, watches the way it contorts, beautifully, to a wrinkled grimace of pleasure, lips twisted and eyes squeezed shut.

Occasionally _all_ she'll do is watch, burning her eyes into him as he squirms and tries—though not that hard—to shut her out. He drifts when he's in charge of his own pleasure, she knows that, and she doesn't like it. She wants to know what he's thinking. So she makes him speak, keeps him talking. She asks him to talk to her about events from their life together. Sometimes David’s task will be something rather mundane, like talking her through the vlog they just uploaded, but it's not what he's saying that she pays attention to. She just likes the way his voice changes, the way it wavers, the way he stops and stalls and gulps and struggles to stay on track. (She slaps him; grabs his throat; makes him keep going.)

Sometimes she pries deeper. Her favourite thing is to ask him about the early days, about when they first met or when she moved in with him. She likes to make him tell her what he thought of her when he first met her, likes hearing about how shy she seemed, how red she went when he first said hi to her, how his friends thought she was cute. The closer he gets, the more desperate, the easier it is for her to pull things from him that he doesn't want to say. He tells her how one of his friends once said she looked like a slut and he didn't stand up for her, how they used to joke about fucking her because he didn’t want to (she’s just a friend). It makes her nerves spark, with anger and hurt and some twisted arousal that always brings her back, wanting more, wanting him to say worse.

Somehow they find peace in this, find it cathartic, but it can never be so simple. Some of the excitement, she thinks, comes from his shame, the way he squeezes his eyes shut and pleads softly, "Natalie...”

It doesn't always have to be about her. She prizes secrets from his clenched hands one by one. She has him tell her all the deep dark memories from his childhood, or she plays priest, has him confess to her all of his dirty thoughts. She wants to hear about all the things that make him squirm, she wants to see the struggle between his mind and his body as she won't let him stop talking nor touching. She loses her grip on it quickly, though, never knows quite what to say after each admission, just sits there gently bouncing on the balls of her feet and watching him with blank eyes, almost trance-like. They both drift for a bit, perhaps, and that's toeing the line at its worst, its most blatant. It's both of them giving up control.


	2. breathe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This monstrosity was inspired by a certain picture of David's hand around Natalie's throat and I couldn't get the image out of my head so here it is in word form. This is ever so slightly ooc. 
> 
> Please take head of the tags and read responsibly.
> 
> Also just as a little note, this type of relationship, sexual or not can be fun and satisfying as long as it is being done safely and consensually.

Years, they last. Never slip up. Lucky rather than careful.

But it's been on their tail so long that they know it'll catch them up. It's something inevitable, something that looms dark and dreaded in their future, almost like death. They can fool themselves that they'll manage to outwit it, but deep down they know the risks they're taking, know that one night it'll take them over completely and they'll be powerless to stop it.

But years, _years_ they last.

And then, one night-

——————

Under the guise of dark and strobe lights, the beat of the music in the club vibrate through his body and he's sweating so much he feels it dripping down his skin, collecting on his forehead, his upper lip. Somewhere in his field of vision, Natalie is there drink in hand. He wipes his forehead with the back of his hand, anticipation swirling in his gut.

Natalie sinks down before him in the booth, suddenly, veiled as a break from the dance floor and hangs her head, hair veiling her face. David wants to tuck it tenderly behind her ears, or wrap it round his fist and pull it 'til she screams.

Instead, he twitches his fingers near her head Natalie jerks forward—he feels her hair brush his hand—and then back, and then he angles his body towards her. She looks up at his other hand to his knuckles where they're whitened in a clenched grip on his camera.

And then she falls back, crosses her legs, sets her drink down and waits for it.

He smooths his sweaty hair, sliding his hand over his head, and stares down at the perfect shape of her legs. His heart feels like it's in his throat, closing it right up.

She gets up makes her way back to the dance floor. David follows her like his body is on autopilot and he has no control of it. The boys hoot and holler when they see him. She finds her spot in their circle and dances. And then she's moving with him.

Natalie trembles next to him, throws back her head and exposes the long, tan arc of her throat, glistening with sweat.

Each movement he makes is awkward he’s fully aware of it but she’s there guiding him through it. He grabs a hold of her hip suddenly in alarm, when another guy accidentally bumps into her, feels the soft silk of her dress. He’s her clutching so tight that her hipbone is digging into his palm.

In a flash, he becomes aware of the way she sways, so close to pressing firmly against the unbearable starting swell of an erection. He needs to pull back, get away, but he can't, can't seem to do anything but what he's doing. He feels what she's feeling, feels the push, the strain of the limits, feels her rising panic like she's not sure she can take it. Too much, too much.

His mind seems to float away from him, separate from his body. The heat, the smoke, the lights of the club envelope them, and David’s vision blurs and hazes. The vibrations of the noise make him quiver, and there's no club anymore, no crowd, no DJ, just him, and Natalie, and hot noise thrilling through their veins. His heart hammers, his hips thrust, and the non-friction is killing him.

Suddenly she's arching up, overpowering him in his daze, and brushes his thigh as she lifts her arms to the beat. It's the shift of her body against him as subtle as it is, that does it. His mind is frenzied white noise and for a moment he can't breathe. She falls forward, burying her face in his shoulder. He can feel her open mouth at his neck. An overwhelming flood of heat and he's gone, it takes him, and his eyes glaze over.

Natalie's losing it against him, shaking helplessly, uncontrollably. Through the cacophony he hears the moan that wracks her frail body, almost a howl of a sound, but muffled against the slick skin of his neck. She tenses so hard, every muscle and tendon as taut as can be, that she seems to be resisting, fighting against him, her head forcing him back. He drives on, and they grind into each other like parts of a machine, wearing each other down.

His hands seize up, unclench, and the whooping from someone next to him is lost to his own ears under the sound of his own panting and Natalie’s wheezing gasps. Her body is a dead weight slumped against him, huddled, folded in on itself. The heat is utterly excruciating, closing in on them like a stifling cloud. His skin drips, seems to melt right off him, and he wipes his forehead agitatedly. His head drops onto her shoulder weakly, and his sinuses sting like they're ready for tears.

She’s murmuring something, something panicked and unintelligible in his ear, but balances on unsteady feet. He feels Natalie’s fingers linking loosely through his, small and still trembling, and they walk off the dance floor, eyes cast downwards in something like shame.

The moment they round the corner, they collide once again, in each other's arms and collapse against a cool wall. He's aware of her tears before his own, hearing the choked sobs as she clutches him painfully tightly. His face is pressed where her neck meets her shoulder, his lips wet with tears and smearing against her skin, and his hand cradles her head, strokes anxiously through her snarled hair. She starts to wrestle herself free, shouts, "Fuck._ Fuck_!" and then goes still again, snakes her hand down between their bodies and presses it against the damp crotch of his jeans.

“David, what the _fuck_," Natalie says in a stunned undertone, and he backs off, pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes until he sees stars.

She tries to pull his arms away and he pushes her back. He grabs her by the throat as she’s ducked over and groaning, and forces her against the wall. He looks into her wild eyes, looks at the hard angry line of her lips, and then they're lunging forward at each other as though they mean to knock each other out. Instead, their mouths collide, harsh and quick and bringing blood, all teeth as they try to fight each other off and force themselves on each other all at once.

His lips smear across her cheek and her hands move from their vice-grip around his wrists. His fingers immediately interlink with hers.

They embrace furiously again, as though they're terrified of drifting away from each other, losing sight of each other in this inky sea of the unknown. They squeeze so close to one another it's almost like they're trying to turn into a single body, and it almost seems possible as much as it seems necessary. But still they refuse to give in—they panic, they blame, they want to keep hurting just for something familiar.

And finally, finally, when the noise around the corner has died down and the crowds have dissipated, when they're too sore and weak and aching to keep fighting it, they stop their struggle. And then all there is left to do is keep clinging on, just hold on tight.

**Author's Note:**

> Title based off Feel Real by Deptford Goth. 
> 
> I have fic art/moodboard to go with this dm me "breathe" on twitter @/starkdobrik and ill send it to you.
> 
> There might be a part 2, lets see if I can end this story first.
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


End file.
